


A Good Place to Bury the Body

by Watergaw



Category: All For the Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: M/M, Post-TKM
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-13
Updated: 2016-07-13
Packaged: 2018-07-23 19:34:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7477044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Watergaw/pseuds/Watergaw
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A good place to bury the body, in a quiet corner of the construction site on the far side of campus. Not for the first time, Neil thought a little wistfully of Andrew’s offer to help him with the Jack problem.</p><p>-------</p><p>My take on a few of Nora Sakavic's ideas for the abandoned 4th book, from here: http://korakos.tumblr.com/fox. With some slightly gratuitous Andreil. A happy, fluffy ficlet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Good Place to Bury the Body

A good place to bury the body, in a quiet corner of the construction site on the far side of campus. Not for the first time, Neil thought a little wistfully of Andrew’s offer to help him with the Jack problem. He scrubbed a hand through his hair and scowled. For weeks now, he’d been resisting the temptation to cut Jack down. The Foxes’ new striker recruit reminded him of no one so much as Seth, Jack’s obstreperous nature and arrogance at once infuriating Neil and reviving memories of the guilty part he’d had to play in the death of his former teammate. Neil couldn’t and wouldn’t change the choices he’d made that had brought him here, to his life among the Foxes, but Seth had died because Neil gave free rein to his tongue, insulting the man who had ordered Seth’s murder. For all Jack’s snide comments and little provocations, Neil couldn’t yet bring himself to speak his mind.

  
It didn’t help that Jack was talented: that, and the time he’d clocked playing in the lower leagues fuelled his conviction that Neil had had everything handed to him. Yet, if Neil had his own doubts about his abilities as vice captain, it wasn't hard to guess that what really burnt Jack was the answer he kept getting when he asked Kevin, _why Neil_?

  
And Kevin said _because he is worth more to the court than you ever will be_.

  
It didn’t help that Neil understood what made Jack so poisonous. While he couldn’t get Jack into line, the talent that should have been an asset was increasingly becoming a liability. Jack’s insistence on fighting him every step of the way was beginning to fracture morale.  
Neil could feel the edges of the words that would hurt Jack in his mouth, keen as razors, yet he held them in because he could do nothing else. He could cut Jack down, but that wasn’t what the Foxes needed. And if part of him might even enjoy the cruelty of breaking Jack, that wasn’t who Neil wanted to be either. So Jack kept on needling, and Neil kept on resisting that nagging urge to cut him down. Neil bit his lip, tasting the problem.

  
“Just look at him. How Wymack ever made that jumped up little amateur vice captain beats me.”

  
“Shh…he can hear you!” Sheena, sotto voce, tipped her head towards Jack with a malicious smile.

  
“Fuck him. Not so brave without his little boyfriend, is he?”

  
Wednesday afternoon practice. Andrew and Aaron were with Betsy, the team’s psychiatrist, for their ongoing therapy. And apparently, Andrew’s absence was inspiring Jack and his girlfriend to reach new heights of insufferability. Neil managed not to roll his eyes. Barely.

  
“Hey, Wesninski, I’m talking to you.” A perfectly pitched growl: loud enough to be audible to Neil, but not loud enough for Coach or the rest of the team to hear. To Jack, Neil’s restraint looked like weakness. Neil folded his anger in on itself, nails biting into the palms of his hands as he counted.

  
Jack had thrown Neil’s past at him before in his quest to get under Neil’s skin. In fact,  
Jack had done his homework. Neil let it wash over him because the alternative was a violence that wouldn't only hurt Jack. Neil needed the new Foxes to trust him, to coalesce around him as a team as the old Foxes had. Taking Jack down would be more satisfying than Neil wanted to admit, even to himself, but the Foxes wouldn’t care to follow someone who cut one of their own so deep, and liked it. He turned, beginning to move away from Jack, and from temptation.

  
“Look at him run.”

  
“Yeah, like old times. A coward, just like his mother.”

  
A surprise only because it had taken Jack so long to use this particular line of attack, Jack’s words tapped a well of anger and loss in Neil whose depths he’d never be able to fathom. Neil stared at Jack for an endless moment before the weight of his anger telescoped down to a point of perfect clarity. His head snapped up, snaring Jack’s eyes with a hard gaze. At the edge of his vision, Neil could see the other Foxes stopping to take notice, but he didn’t look away.

  
“You know, I had you figured for an asshole who thought he was too good for this team, but you’re the real coward here, aren’t you? If you were half the player you make yourself out to be, you’d play. But you don’t, do you? You waste my time with pointless insults, but you won’t put your back into playing for us, because if you did, you’d finally have to work out what exactly it is you have to offer. What you’re actually worth to us. And you’re afraid it’s not enough. As long as you don’t try, you can keep pretending you’ve got what it takes. Well, if you’ve got it, prove it.”

  
Anticipating that words alone weren’t going to get through to Jack this time, Neil was alert to the movement of Jack’s arm. In one fluid motion, Neil ducked, feeling the breath of Jack’s fumbled swing against his skin. Gathering his fist by his stomach, he drove it to meet Jack’s jaw in an uppercut. In the background, Neil saw Allison move to shut down Sheena’s protest. Shaking his hand out, Neil looked down at the crumpled shape on the ground, dismissively:

  
“Think it over, and wise up. We’re already champions. What have you really got to lose by working with us, instead of against us?”

  
Neil moved off the court without a backward glance. After a stunned moment, Lila broke the silence with a whistle.

  
“All right Foxes, I give you our vice captain, Mr Neil Josten, fastest mouth in class I Exy!” Lila smirked, staring down Kevin’s entirely futile attempt at a quelling glare. Kevin still hadn’t forgiven her for dubbing him princess, and still less for blowing off his best pass at bullying her into stepping up her game. Making her own capital on Neil and Jack’s war, as ever, Lila couldn’t resist the opportunity to stir.

  
Crossing the court towards them, Wymack pressed his fingers to his temples, as if warding off a headache.

  
“Okay, people. Would anyone care to remind me why it is I signed up for the thousandth consecutive season of this bullshit drama? No? Laps it is then. Move it!”

On court, Dan had chewed Neil and Jack out for bringing their attitude problems to practice, but it didn't take long for the upperclassmen’s diplomatic façade to crumble back at Fox Tower. Arriving home late, as usual, Neil had barely made it out of the lift before Matt scooped him up and whirled him round with an enthusiastic whoop.

  
“Yeah, that’s how it’s done! So proud of you!”

  
Behind them, the lift doors closed, and Neil overheard one of the freshman athletes from another team say to his friend, “But I thought he was with the keeper?”

  
In the background, Dan’s shoulders started to shake, silently. Matt caught her eye, and grinned, setting Neil back down. “Well, you know, if I had to pick a guy…”

  
Nicky beamed. “I _knew_ it!”

  
Neil blinked, shook his head, and went off to find Andrew.

With the door closed, Andrew pressed Neil to the wall, trailing slow kisses along his jawline. “Took you long enough”, he said.

  
Later, much later, they took advantage of the empty dorm room. Kevin was staying at Wymack’s after their weekly dinner, as they gradually began to build a relationship as father and son.

  
“Oui ou non?”  
“Ou.i”

“ Ja of neen?”  
“Ja.”

“Si o no?”  
“Si.”

It had taken them months to get here. With each question and answer, Neil traded the fragments of his life on the run to map the contours of Andrew’s body. With hands and lips, Neil traced the slow path down to his final object, until at last he framed a question in a fresh language, in words they’d learned together.

“Da ili net?”  
“Da, kotik.”

Neil hid a smile in a kiss at the double edge of Andrew’s name for him. Tom cat. Echoing the Foxes’ first perception of Neil as a skittish stray, the name was a reminder that Neil could stay. He felt the truth of it in his body, rippling out like a stone thrown into water. Neil was under no illusions that today’s on court knockdown would solve his problems with Jack, but it was a beginning, and he knew that he could be this, could be here, without raising the ghosts of a past buried in Baltimore with his father. With a contented sigh, he turned his attention back to Andrew, and the body folding around his kiss.

**Author's Note:**

> The italicised Jack/Kevin dialogue is Nora Sakavic's, as is the whole Jack/Neil plot, including Matt, Dan, and Andrew's responses.


End file.
